23 Candid Color Snapshots of Vietnamese Bar Girls During the Vietnam War

During the Vietnam War, a whole sex industry sprung up around American servicemembers. Prostitutes would congregate at bars where service members would frequent, and offer their services. Sometimes, the prostitutes and women who had intercourse would get pregnant. The resulting Amerasian children, of whom there were estimated to be about 50,000, were ostracized and given the derisive name bui doi (“dirt of life”). Often, these children were themselves forced into prostitution.

During the war, hooch maids would often clean up after the soldiers in their dwellings. One soldier described the maids as being, “…good Catholics who might flirt with you but would never date an American soldier.” At the same time it was not unheard of for maids to “keep the plumbing clean” for soldiers in order to earn some extra income.